Note: This page is horribly out of
date.
You can find the current pages for the dm-crypt
project (the Linux kernel part) here:
https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup/wikis/DMCrypt
and the project page for the command line tool
cryptsetup (with Linux Unified Key
Setup - LUKS) here: https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup.
Old page:
Device-mapper is a new infrastructure in the Linux 2.6 kernel that provides
a generic way to create virtual layers of block devices that can do different
things on top of real block devices like striping, concatenation, mirroring,
snapshotting, etc... The device-mapper is used by the
LVM2 and
EVMS 2.x tools.
dm-crypt is such a device-mapper target that provides transparent encryption of
block devices using the new Linux 2.6 cryptoapi. The user can basically specify
one of the symmetric ciphers, a key (of any allowed size), an iv generation mode
and then the user can create a new block device in /dev. Writes to this device
will be encrypted and reads decrypted. You can mount your filesystem on it as usual.
But without the key you can't access your data.
It does basically the same as cryptoloop only that it's a much cleaner code and
better suits the need of a block device and has a more flexible configuration
interface. The on-disk format is also compatible. In the future you will be able
to specify other iv generation modes for enhanced security (you'll have to
reencrypt your filesystem though).
I've set up a Wiki.
There's a mailing list at .
If you want to subscribe, use the mailman
web interface or its
archive.
Gmane provides a NNTP interface and also a
web archive
for this mailing list.
There is support for dm-crypt in the latest official kernel
2.6.4
which you can find on kernel.org.
Please use the mirrors for downloads.
There is a HIGHMEM cryptoapi bug in kernels before 2.6.4-rc2, please
upgrade if you were using such a kernel.
The latest version of the native userspace setup tool is cryptsetup 0.1.
Clemens Fruhwirth is maintaining an
enhanced
version of cryptsetup with the LUKS extension that allows you to have an
on-disk block of metadata which is superior to the current mechanism and was
my long term plan anyway but I didn't find the time to implement that yet...
Invite your bookkeeper. The trial allows up to 5 users (Pro) or 30+ users (Enterprise). Test the server-client setup to ensure it works on your local network.
Use the trial to validate workflows with realistic sample data and test integrations you plan to use in production. Prioritize data backup, confirm Windows compatibility, and evaluate long-term costs (licensing, payroll, hosting) before committing.
While Intuit is aggressively shifting users toward cloud-based options , you can still access a 30-day free trial of QuickBooks Desktop , specifically for the Enterprise
edition. Here is a review and breakdown of what to expect from the trial experience. QuickBooks Trial Availability and Access The trial lasts for No Credit Card Required:
You can sign up and download the software without providing credit card information upfront. Installation:
To start, you download the fully functional software and click "Install Trial"
. You do not need to enter a source or offer code during the setup to proceed. Trial Versions: While the current focus is on QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise
, trial versions of older versions (like 2012 or 2016) are sometimes used by support communities to help users migrate legacy data to newer platforms. QuickBooks Key Features During Trial Real Data Usage:
Unlike some "demo" modes, this trial allows you to enter and use your own real company data Industry Editions:
You can choose between different industry-specific editions (e.g., Contractor, Manufacturing, Non-Profit) or a edition during the installation process. Full Functionality:
You have access to the software's full feature set, including the ability to explore sample companies or open existing QuickBooks data files. QuickBooks User Experience and Sentiment QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Free Trial and Demo - Intuit
QuickBooks Desktop offers a 30-day free trial that allows you to explore features like advanced reporting and inventory management without an immediate financial commitment. Because Intuit now prioritizes its online subscription model, finding the specific desktop trial links can be tricky. 1. Locate the Official Trial Download free trial of quickbooks desktop
To ensure you are downloading a safe version, always use official Intuit sources.
Enterprise Trial: Visit the QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Free Trial page. You will typically need to fill out a short form with your business details to receive the download link via email.
Mac & Other Versions: If you specifically need the Mac version or standard Pro/Premier trials, Intuit often hosts these on their Learn & Support trial page.
Student Edition: Verified students can access a longer educational trial through the Intuit Education Program. 2. Installation Steps
Once you have the installation file (usually a .exe for Windows), follow these steps:
System Check: Confirm your computer meets the minimum system requirements, as the software is a large program.
Run Installer: Open the downloaded file and choose Express Install for the fastest setup on a single computer.
License Keys: For many Enterprise trials, you do not need to enter a license or product number during the initial 30-day period. If prompted, you can often skip this step to continue as a trial.
Activation: When you first open the software, you may be asked to "Activate" or create an Intuit account to begin the 30-day countdown. 3. Critical Trial Tips Desk top | QuickBooks Community
Here’s a balanced review of the free trial of QuickBooks Desktop, covering pros, cons, limitations, and who it’s best for.
You downloaded the wrong version. Intuit sometimes labels old versions (2022, 2023) as trials. Ensure you downloaded the 2024 or 2025 trial version. Invite your bookkeeper
Run the Profit & Loss by Class or Job Costing reports. Desktop has over 120 standard reports, more than Online. During your trial, export a P&L to Excel. Desktop’s integration with Excel is vastly superior to the Online version.
As of 2025, Intuit is aggressively hiding Desktop. Direct URL: quickbooks.intuit.com/desktop/ – Look for the blue "Free Trial" button on the right rail, not the "Buy Now" red button.
Intuit hides this link. Do not search Google for "free QB desktop" (you will get spam). Instead:
Pro tip: If you cannot find the link, use a private browser window. Intuit’s cookies often hide the trial option after you have visited the pricing page.
Before you click "download," understand these three major gotchas:
1. No migration path. If you upload your company file to the trial, you cannot convert that trial file to a paid license. You will have to rebuild your file from scratch or restore a backup. Tip: Use a dummy company file to test, not your real books.
2. The clock starts immediately. The moment you install the software, Day 1 begins. There is no "pause" button if you go on vacation.
3. The "Cloud" trap. This trial is for the desktop software only. If you want cloud hosting (access from any computer), that is a separate service that does not have a free trial.
The free trial of QuickBooks Desktop is generous—30 full days of the most powerful SMB accounting software on the market. But it comes with a responsibility: you must be technical enough to install software, manage backups, and troubleshoot Windows issues.
Take the trial if:
Skip the trial if:
Final Action Step: Start your 30-day clock today. Set a calendar reminder for day 25. Spend the first week in the sample file, and the last three weeks in your real data. If you haven't fallen in love with the speed and reporting power by day 28, cancel your trial and switch to Online.
But be warned: Once you go Desktop, you rarely go back.
Disclaimer: Features, pricing, and trial availability for QuickBooks Desktop are subject to change by Intuit. Always verify the current terms on the official Intuit website before providing payment information.
QuickBooks Desktop free trial primarily offers a 30-day window
to test the software's full functionality without requiring a credit card. Currently, Intuit focuses trial availability on QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 24.0 QuickBooks Desktop for Mac Plus 2024 QuickBooks Key Trial Features Full Functionality:
You can access almost all features of the chosen plan, including invoicing, expense tracking, and financial reporting. Data Portability:
Any data entered during the trial is retained if you decide to purchase a subscription, allowing for a seamless transition. Industry-Specific Editions:
The Enterprise trial allows you to choose between several editions tailored to specific industries (e.g., manufacturing, retail, or non-profit). No Registration Codes Needed:
Standard trials generally do not require a license or product code during the initial 30-day setup. QuickBooks How to Access the Trial
To get started, you must download the specific trial installation file from the Intuit support page Availability QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 30-Day Trial Most robust version available for trial. QuickBooks for Mac 30-Day Trial Available for US-based Mac users. Education Edition Student Trial Verified students/educators can access longer trials. Trial Restrictions Limited Services: Integrated services like Online Banking Direct Deposit are typically disabled in the trial version. Version Limitation:
Free trials for older versions (like 2023 or 2022) are generally discontinued once a newer version is released. Registration Warning: Users are advised not to attempt to register Use the trial to validate workflows with realistic
the trial version, as doing so can sometimes lock the software. QuickBooks how to install the Enterprise trial on your specific operating system? QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Free Trial and Demo - Intuit
The on-disk layouts used by the current 2.6 cryptoloop are supported by dm-crypt.
Cryptoloop also uses cryptoapi so the name of the ciphers are the same. Cryptoloop also
supports ECB and CBC mode. Use <cipher>-ecb and
<cipher>-plain accordingly with dm-crypt. If you didn't
explicitly specify either -ecb or -cbc before you don't need it now, the default plain
IV generation will be used. There will be additional (incompatible, but more secure) possibilites
in the future because the unhashed sector number as IV is too predictible.
You'll need to figure out how your passphrase was turned into a key to use for losetup.
There are several patches floating around doing things differently. But usually cryptsetup
will provide a working solution to recreate the same key from your passphrase.
If you want to migrate from 2.4 cryptoloop please take a look at Clemens Fruhwirth's
Cryptoloop
Migration Guide. He describes the differences between 2.4 and 2.6 cryptoapi (or basically
the bugs in 2.4 cryptoapi...). If you need to cut the key size you can use the -s
option instead of playing with dd.
(BTW: Clemens has a i586 optimized version of the aes and serpent cipher on his page,
about twice as fast as the kernel implementation.)
Why dm-crypt?
Originally it started as a fun project because I wanted to play with the new Linux 2.6 internals.
I got a lot of great help from the device-mapper guys at Sistina (now Redhat). Thank you very
much!
It turned out that this implementation worked great and is very clean compared to the hacked
loop device. The device-mapper core provides much better facilities to stack block devices.
dm-crypt uses mempools to assure we never run into out-of-memory deadlocks when allocating
buffers.
Also the device-mapper configuration interface provides much more flexibility than the losetup
ioctl. And you can create as many devices as you want with any names you want and combine them
with other dm targets. Online device resizing is also possible, e.g. if you use dm-crypt on top
of a logical volume. There might perhaps even be LVM or EVMS support for device encryption
in the future.
But I don't want to use LVM!
You don't need LVM. Device-mapper is an all-purpose kernel feature,
not tied to LVM in any way.
What if I want to encrypt a filesystem and keep it in a file?
You can use dm-crypt on top of a normal loop device, call losetup and cryptsetup.
I'm going to add loop support to cryptsetup so it can do this for you.
I created my filesystem on the encrypted device. How can I keep it across reboots?
Very simple. Call cryptsetup again and supply the same passphrase. It only creates
a mapping, not a filesystem.
What if I want to change my passphrase?
At the moment you'll need to reencrypt your device because the passphrase is directly
tied to the key.
There are plans to write a tool that stores the master key on disk
and encrypted so it can be unlocked using a passphrase. You can then
change your passphrase on a regular basis.
If you want to reencrypt your filesystem you'll have to recreate a new one and move your files.
(I've got an experimantal tool in the works that allows you to reencrypt your block device on the fly,
assuming you don't reboot your machine...)
I've read about security problems.
Yes, the IV schemes currently supported by dm-crypt are the same as the ones supported by
cryptloop. There's the ECB mode which is a catastrophe (no IV at all) and the "plain"
mode, which is already a lot better. Older cryptoloops used ECB by default, but with dm-crypt
the default is "plain" (which is the unhashes sector number used as IV).
Since dm-crypt is extensible there will be better possibilities in the future, but they will be
on-disk incompatible with cryptoloop so you'll have to reencrypt.
Help! I can't figure out how to use my old encrypted data! I was using...
There are different implementations out there. Some are non-cryptoapi and/or
broken implementations. SuSE uses its own loop-twofish implementation which
makes dangerous assumptions and is broken when changing the blocksize
("timebomb crypto"). You cannot use this with dm-crypt.
Can I reencrypt my data without copying all the files?
There's an experimental and unfinished dmconvert program
that can reencrypt the data while the filesystem is mounted. If you can get it running it should
be safe enough to not eat your data, but make sure you don't interrupt it or crash your system
while it is running. Don't blame me if something goes wrong.
Can I use encrypted swap?
Yes. You can specify a key file /dev/random and run mkswap afterwards, so the device will be
created with a different key each time and the data is not accessible at all after a reboot.
Is there a mailing list?
I've set up a Wiki.
There's a mailing list at .
If you want to subscribe, use the mailman
web interface or its
archive.
Gmane provides a NNTP interface and also a
web archive
for this mailing list.
My system hangs for some time in regular intervals when writing to encrypted disks.
You are probably using Linux 2.6.4. Du to the introduction of kthread pdflush is running at nice level -10,
which means that the kernels treats dm-crypt writes as a real time task and doesn't allow scheduling.
Solution: Switch to 2.6.5 or later or renice pdflush manually.
Can I use the mount command itself to do all the magic needed?
I've written an experimental patch for this, see
my post
in the mailing list archive.
Where can I send my contributions?
Because maintaining a web page takes time and people keep mailing me a lot of
things I could integrate they can enter it into this nice Wiki.
Please contact the mailing list: dm-crypt@saout.de. Or in case there is a problem with the mailing list, me: .